This invention relates generally to the display of digital images and more particularly the invention relates to an improved method and means for establishing new pixel values for new pixel locations from an image having established pixel locations and values. The new pixel locations could be chosen, for example, to magnify, minify, translate or distort the original image.
The display of a digital image, for example on a video screen or photographic film, is controlled by a memory which stores values for picture elements or pixels. In a video display, an electron beam is scanned across the phosphor-coated surface of the display screen, and the current of the electron beam is controlled in accordance with the stored values to thus control the light intensity of each pixel element as the electron beam impinges on the phosphor material. Alternatively, the digital image can be transferred to photographic film by scanning a laser beam across the film and modulating the intensity of the laser beam in accordance with the stored pixel values.
In any of the image processing tasks mentioned above, values for pixels at locations different than the original pixel locations must be arrived at. The simplest technique for doing this is to use, for each output pixel, the value of the nearest input pixel. Minification is then performed by selectively deleting pixels while to magnify some or all of the pixel values are replicated. The resulting image quality is often not satisfactory. Values for the new pixel locations can be arrived at using linear interpolation in both directions. However, images magnified using this method are blurry and structured noise is sometimes visible.
Improved fidelity and sharpness can be realized if the interpolation of new pixel values is a higher order polynomial interpolation. For example, in a third order interpolation of a pixel value in a new matrix to be described, the values of sixteen adjacent pixels in the old matrix are used. Generally, the higher the order of the polynomial used, the more fidelity and sharpness the new image will have. However, as the order of the polynomial interpolation increases, more computations are required in determining the new pixel values.